Don't
by blumoone
Summary: Human!AU. Pam is tired of seeing Tara fall for undeserving men. She deserves better and Pam wants to be the one to give it to her.


**A/N: So, the idea of this story was inspired by the song 'Don't' by Bryson Tiller. It might be helpful to listen to the track on repeat while reading, help set the mood or something. Anyway, this is a Human!AU and I have to admit I had quite a bit of fun writing Pam and Tara as human. I hope you guys like it and don't mind the absence of fangs, Fangtasia, and blood. I'd really love it if all who read this leave their thoughts on it in the form of a review giving the fact that this was relatively newish territory for me, I'd greatly appreciated the feedback. Happy Reading!**

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"He really is full of shit," Tara said, her voice thick with anger and hurt, tears trembling unshed beneath her ink black lashes as she threw back another shot of Hennessey , "And I mean, I always knew he _was_ but it still fucking sucks."

" _All_ men are full of shit Tara," Pam murmured, not even attempting to hide the acerbic bite to her tone. She tossed her sea of blonde curls over her shoulder as she settled back onto the couch and pulled a dime from her designer purse, dangling it back and forth enticingly in front of Tara's face between a lily white thumb and forefinger, "You want me to roll you up?"

Tara eyed the small ziploc bagged green herb with a wry smile. "You always know the right shit to say to me. Please."

The dark skinned woman set her empty glass down and heaved a heavy sigh, grateful for the company, grateful for the liquor, and grateful for the spliff. Her and Pam's friendship was as unconventional as they came. After living most of her life in Shreveport, Pamela Swynford de Beaufort had attended college in New Orleans where she met Tara Thornton. The two had started off despising each other in Freshman year, made amends in Senior year after sharing a couple of classes and a dorm room, and now were oddly close. Where her best friend, fellow Bon Temps resident and town oddball, Sookie Stackhouse lacked, Pam made up. She was caustic, sarcastic, and yet reminded Tara of herself in a tall, blonde haired, blue eyed version. She was intelligent, loyal, and looked out for hers. And that was something Tara would always respect. Whereas Sookie was naive and had an unrealistic outlook on life and people, Pam had _seen_ some shit, been through some shit just as Tara had seen and been through some shit and she supposed that was why, despite their differences, they had eventually ended up clicking so well.

Obsidian eyes watched as Pam crushed the weed between deft and nimble alabaster fingers. Despite the fact that her nails were polished with fresh shellac and clearly newly manicured, she never faltered. The blonde took the rolling paper, swiping her pink tongue across it to moisten it, before spreading the green herb in an even line. She then pressed the edges of the paper together, sealing it closed with more wetness from her tongue and rolling the ends into a perfect spliff. Throughout the process, as ever, she had managed not to smudge the blood red color off of her bee-stung lips.

"Still impressed by the way you roll," Tara said with a snort, "Lafayette would definitely be jealous."

Pam smirked. She was very well familiar with Tara's cousin and his _vices_ and while she and him had had their differences, she was humored by the statement. "Well let him know I can show him the _proper_ technique whenever he takes the dick out of his ass and asks. But then again, who am I to disparage someone their personal pleasures."

"That's fucked up," the ebony haired woman laughed, plucking the spliff from Pam's hand and sparked it. As soon as that first pull hit her lungs, a wave of calm washed over her, effectively drying her unshed tears. She coughed on the exhale, her dark eyes indolently roving over to the blonde, her voice choked from the smoke, "Yeah, you rolled this shit right."

"Of course I did. Now tell me," Pam arched a perfectly manicured brow as she fixed Tara with the full weight of her cerulean gaze, intensified by the application of flawless black eyeliner and mascara, "Why'd you take the fucker back if we've been through this more than once? Why did you think things would be any better this time around? He's been a fucking lame since y'all met. There's no cure for lamery."

"That's not a word," Tara said with a roll of her eyes, ashing the smoking tip of the spliff on the edge of the coffee table, finding herself unable to meet her friend's gaze. Under the influence of the weed, it was almost like Pam was looking _through_ her. Her eyes were like an ocean encapsulated, blue enough to drown in, lose yourself in. And she really did not want that. She hated not having control of her emotions, hated looking weak. After the hard life that she had led, with an abusive alcoholic mother, an absent father, and being one of the handful of black people in the backwoods Louisiana swamp of a town, Bon Temps, had affected her far deeply than she cared to admit. But she had beaten the statistics. She didn't have no bastard babies, had finished high school, earned a college degree, and had job.

Her success with relationships however? It seemed like that was one casualty of her life that wasn't going to receive the Lazarus treatment. And how fucked up was that? Out of all the things that she had had success with, she would trade any of it to have some type of permanent companionship outside of friends who weren't likely to be turned off or on by the stereotypical 'angry black woman' image that the majority of the population of Bon Temps had painted her as...

"You're not saying anything," Pam said softly, effectively derailing Tara's train of thought, "High already?"

"Naw," Tara said slowly, passing the blonde the spliff and reaching for the bottle of Henny. She pulled the cork free and took a swig straight from the rim of the bottle. Grimacing at the burn that hit the back of her throat, she sat back on the couch, "I guess I was kinda desperate after Eggs got killed."

And there it was. As soon as her ex-boyfriend's name left her throat, a filmstrip of images flashed before her eyes. The two of them chilling together, laughing together. If she was ever going to find someone that she might have been able to tolerate being married to for the rest of her life, Eggs would have been it. And then he'd been shot in the head one night and the fantasy was shattered. And she had not been able to cope. It was almost like the weight of her entire life had come crashing down on her when that happened. _Everything_. All at once. And she had lost control. It was right around that time she had run into Franklin Mott. And unsure of whether it was her own desperation or just some rebound shit, she had went out with him.

He had provided her with a distraction from her pain. She had grew distant from her friends and Lafayette, became sucked into the numb world that Franklin had laid before her. Until he started sleeping around. Indiscriminately. And she had been so far gone that she might have been able to ignore it. If it had not been for the thankfully curable but no less painful venereal disease he had passed along to her from one of his whores.

That had been enough of a wake up call the first time around for her to realize that this wasn't the answer to her problems. And she had left him.

Until the fear of really being alone for the rest of her life hit her like a sucker punch to the brain and she had started replying to his texts again a couple months later.

He had seemed so genuine, apologizing for his wrong doings, promising to be a better man. Almost obsessively promising to make things work because he loved her. The regular bullshit. And she had foolishly been willing to accept it all. Up until the day some woman named Sophie Anne contacted her phone, saying that she had read their text messages and felt the need to inform her that she was now five months pregnant with Franklin's child and that he had proposed to her. Baby due in March. Wedding set for May.

Tara didn't even realize she was crying until Pam reach across to brush a tear from her night kissed cheek. "Don't," the blonde whispered, "You're not about to waste these. Not on that asshole."

Pam didn't do well with _feelings_ , hers or anyone else's. The life she had lived, though wealthy had not been the most privileged. She had had to fend for herself since she had been young to feed her own materialistic appetite. Money did not grow on trees, and she had never been foolish enough to believe that sentiment. But a woman, especially an attractive one, was an untapped gold mine so to speak. And the day she had learned that fact, she had never looked back. She had done what she had had to do to survive. With no regrets. But when _feelings_ were involved, that took away from the numbing iciness of the facade that came more easier to her than breath. She had experienced all of that in her longest relationship to date with a guy named Eric. It had taken a pound of flesh from her heart, their relationship, and she had never felt the way she had felt about him for anyone. People were so dispensable. But when someone was _hers_ , in every capacity of the word, they were irreplaceable. And that was what Eric had been to her. Until _she_ had been the one being replaced. She knew very well what Tara was going through and knew just as well that Franklin Mott did not deserve her tears.

She had had females, had actually always preferred them to males. And she knew that her feelings for Tara were far from platonic. From the moment they had met, albeit despite the fact that they had been literally at each other's throats, she couldn't deny the initial attraction. Tara was a beautiful woman. Flawless complexion, like melted milk chocolate, a body that most women would kill for - muscular but never letting go of its femininity - and she was equipped with a mental capacity that spanned centuries. Her tongue was as sharp as Pam's was, wit as quick as a luxury car's accelerator. And it did something to her, to see her crying over a misogynistic asshole who would not know how to appreciate a decent woman even he happened to sprout a uterus and vagina over night.

"You're not going to like what I'm about to say, but you've known me long enough to know I don't give a shit," Pam said, facing Tara, fixing her with the full weight of her cerulean gaze, "He only fucked you over because you let him."

Tara's obsidian eyes flashed with a sudden and fleeting rage before she let out a short sigh, gritting her teeth to keep more tears from falling. "Yeah," she murmured softly. "You right."

"Listen. You need to stop letting these men get over on you. You're too strong and beautiful for that." The words were spilling out of Pam's mouth before she could stop them. It was uncharacteristic of her really to offer any form of comfort but with Tara, Tara was different. She had lived a life filled with pain and disappointment. Just as she had. And she remembered what it had felt like when she and Eric had parted ways. Mind, Franklin was far more of an asshole than the six foot, four inch Nordic god of a man she had spent the best years of her life on, but still.

The ebony skinned woman gave a humorless chuckle, taking another swig of the amber colored cognac. "Yeah? I don't feel very strong. And I don't feel very beautiful."

Pam leaned forward and plucked the bottle from night kissed fingers. With a raise of a manicured brow, she slid closer to Tara, setting the liquor back down on the table. "I don't think you know how beautiful you are Tara," the blonde drawled on a smoky purr, lifting a hand to brush an errant lock of ink black hair behind Tara's ear. The sudden proximity coupled with the sultry tone of Pam's tone elicited a shuddering gasp from Tara and the blonde deftly caught the soft sound with her lips.

The kiss was soft and sweet, but passionate, the sort of kiss grown women squeezed pillows to their chest and cried to when watching it in a movie, or polished their pearls to when reading about it in a steamy romance novel. Tara's heart felt as if it was trying to beat itself out of her chest and she uttered a throaty moan as Pam's mouth danced with her own, her tongue flooded with the residual tastes of lavender and vanilla and smoke.

The blonde broke the kiss, backing up just slightly, her cerulean gaze fixed on Tara's still parted lips, fluttering lashes, and heaving chest. She smirked, her expression one of mingled arrogance, lust, and the tiniest touch of mild concern, as Tara's obsidian eyes slowly opened.

"W-what the fuck was that?" It took Tara two attempts to articulate, but the breathiness of her voice subtracted substantially from any bite her tone might have contained.

"I kissed you," Pam deadpanned, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. Though it was kind of cute the way Tara looked all wide eyed and out of breath. Like a virgin school girl who had snuck behind the bleachers to make out with the quarterback of the football team.

Tara blinked, willing her heart rate to slow down. Her head felt like it was spinning and not entirely from the buzz of the weed and alcohol. Her lips tingled were Pam's own had moments ago been pressed against them. She had only had one other tryst with a female. That had been in college. A pretty Asian girl named Naomi. They had been in the same fight club and one thing had led to another and they had dated for a couple months. It hadn't worked out though because Tara could never truly get comfortable with the telling Naomi the ins and outs of her life. In the end, they had decided to call it quits. But Pam? She had never really considered there could be feelings there. Of course the blonde was gorgeous, knew quite a bit about her pre-college life, and they had a lot in common. But, she guessed, she had always felt somewhat out of Pam's league. Now they had kissed, irrevocably crossed some sort of invisible barrier that had been drawn between them. And an unwavering cerulean gaze was currently fixed on her with an intense look of some sort of expectation for a reaction. But even with her mind reeling from this unex-fucking-pected turn of events, there really were only three words Tara cared to say right then and there.

"Kiss me again."

Her ebony fingers gently entangled themselves in Pam's flaxen curls as their lips met again, this time with fervor that made the room feel as if it was heated by a hundred degrees. The blonde moaned this time, the sound high pitched and breathy and went straight to the apex of Tara's thighs. She had never heard a sexier sound in her twenty seven years of life. Alabaster hands went from the column of Tara's throat, to her shoulders, down to the front of her t-shirt where they cupped her C cup breasts. Her blood was rushing in her ears, her heart pounding so hard she was sure Pam could hear it. Pam's ample chest rose and fell as the kiss deepened. Straight, blunt teeth nipped at Tara's lip, hard enough to draw a gasp from her throat. She had never been more turned on in her life. An intense throbbing between her legs felt like the pounding of a bass drum.

She broke the kiss this time, unable to catch her breath. Pam chuckled as she drew a gentle caress down her night kissed cheek.

"You better not be playing," Tara muttered after a moment. Her response to Pam had caught her completely off guard and she was torn between wanting to take another pull of the spliff and kissing the blonde again, "I can't deal with no fucking head games right now."

"Honey, I want to play with you, but _games_ are the last things I have on my mind." The statement made Tara clench her thighs together in earnest.

"Why are you doing this, Pam?" She had to know. She knew the symptoms as she had felt them many times before. And she could not fall for someone else who was going to cast her aside like a plate of nasty food. Not again.

Pam sighed. "I _want_ you Tara." The response was simple and succinct but she knew her friend required _more._ "I can't promise I'm the easiest bitch to get on with. Luckily for you, you already know that. But me? I'm on an entire different level than those fucktards you're use to dealing with. You're tired, you're fed up. You deserve better and you deserve everything you've been missing. And I want to give you that." She exhaled sharply through her nose, the confession taking more out of her than she thought it would. If she was being honest, she was gambling a lot too. After Eric, she had been at an impasse. But, in truth, she knew she had more to offer to Tara than Franklin Mott ever could hope to, more than that piece of yellow tail Naomi had in college. Even more than the quote unquote love of Tara's life, Eggs.

Tara was stuck on pause for a moment, letting it all sink in. It was a tempting proposition but still, how could she trust this? Could she really give Pam a chance to make her happy? Her lips parted but no sound came out.

As if sensing the indecisiveness in Tara's mind, Pam placed a finger against a mocha dusted mouth. "Don't. I'm not proposing marriage. I doubt I'm even cut out for fucking matrimony. I'm simply giving you an option."

"To fuck?" Tara said and couldn't help the tang of bitterness that laced the words.

"I mean, that _could_ be part of the package. I think you'd have no complaints, anyway."

The dark skinned woman couldn't help but snort softly at that. "You're one cocky bitch you know that? I hate shopping by the way."

Pam rolled her eyes, "I've known you for a few years. You think I haven't noticed how sadly lacking your wardrobe is by now?"

"I'm never wearing anything pink."

"Definitely not your color darling."

Tara smirked, "I don't do mani pedis."

Pam pinched her dark cheek and arched a brow, "Someone's gotta be the boy in the relationship I guess."

"So hypothetically speaking, I would be topping you?"

"If you can still feel your limbs after I'm done with you, maybe."

Tara laughed, a genuine belly laugh the likes of which she had been too depressed to experience as of late. "This is crazy." And it was, but what part of her life thus far hadn't been? As incredible as it was, she could see herself falling for Pam. Her sexiness, her loyalty, her take no shit demeanor. And if that kiss was any indication of the kinds of things she could do with her mouth, hell, her panties were already soaked. But still...

"I can't be hurt again Pam. I can't."

Pam's smirk faded and was replaced with a look of utter seriousness. "I know what it's like to be fucked over Tara. I know what that feels like, I know how badly it hurts. I don't want to hurt you. Every tear you've ever shed over some undeserving fucker, I want to put them in a bottle of bleach and force feed it to those assholes while you watch and laugh. No one will hurt you again, this I promise you."

As macabre as it sounded, it was honestly the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her without some form of selfish intention involved and it brought a small smile to Tara's lips. "You should write a book with all them pretty lines of yours." She sighed softly, "Yeah. Okay. I want to see where this goes."

The blonde smiled a small smile of her own, pressing a lingering kiss on the corner of Tara's mouth. "Honey, you'll never look back."


End file.
